Originally posted at http://digitaldiatribes.wordpress.com on July 23, 2008.
In cautiously welcomed news, it appears that the entire case in California where a court held that parents had no right to homeschool their children (originally discussed here, with a follow-up here) has been dropped.
While that sounds good, there is still one more step to go in order to completely right this wrong. According to this article on the matter,
Hausknecht believes one of the parties should ask the appellate court to dismiss the appeal completely as being moot. “And that should happen as a matter of course,” he notes. “But since this is California, no one quite knows for certain. So we can’t say with a hundred percent certainty that this case will go away, but we’re pretty sure it will.”
So, dropping the case is a great first step. The next step is to eliminate any and all recognition of the previous ruling. This means it cannot be used as precedent. This step was previously taken on a temporary basis while a re-hearing was scheduled, and it is now time to make that permanent with the case’s dismissal.
The best final step is legislation that takes this out of the hands of the courts entirely. As the article says:
Ideally, says the analyst, state lawmakers would enact a law protecting parents’ right to educate their children as they see fit. He says it looks as if home schooling has won, but Hausknecht believes it could be just a ceasefire “because the uncertainties that convinced the court of appeals…to outlaw home schooling still exist under California law.”
“And we hope that that law becomes solidified in the future rather than made more uncertain for families that home school,” he adds.
But given the liberal nature of the California legislature, Hausknecht does not expect that to happen. He thinks it is a good sign, however, that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger came out so strongly in support of home schooling.
